5 d. ago Trump and Putin are threatening to carve up Europe between them. Suddenly, it all feels a bit 1939 | Simon Tisdall

Forget the US president’s seeming volte-face on Ukraine this week: he and Putin fundamentally agree that European liberal democracy is the problemFor many people in eastern Europe, August 1939 may not feel that long ago. That was the moment Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union secretly agreed to partition Poland and forcibly subsume the sovereign Baltic republics and Finland into their totalitarian “spheres of influence”. The world knows what came next.Now the question arises: is it happening again? This time around, it’s Donald Trump’s United States and Vladimir Putin’s Russia making the big geopolitical power-play – and, once again, all of Europe is potential prey. Notwithstanding last week’s sparring over Ukraine, the two leaders’ core aims appear closely aligned.Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Chelsea fans slam 'have shame' as Lincoln lead world champions in disaster first

Chelsea found themselves 1-0 down against Lincoln City at half-time of their Carabao Cup third round tie, with the League One side deservedly ahead

Sport

1 week ago Look to Myanmar for a vision of a world where authoritarians have unfettered power | Simon Tisdall

The brutality and repression there highlight the failings of a dysfunctional world order. Unless we do better, this is the futureThe children were sleeping when death came from the air. A military warplane dropped two 500lb (230kg) bombs on their boarding school, witnesses said. Imagine, if you can, the carnage and the horror. At least 18 died. Others suffered life-changing injuries. The ruling regime claims to be fighting terrorists. Yet more often than not, it is defenceless, blameless civilians who are killed, maimed and displaced. No, this isn’t Gaza. It isn’t Ukraine. It’s Myanmar, where appalling atrocities, including crimes against humanity, often go unreported and unpunished. That doesn’t render them any less heinous or less deserving of universal condemnation.Myanmar, formerly British-run colonial Burma, where civil war has raged since an army coup overthrew the elected government in 2021, is a microcosm of today’s fractured world. National leaders gathering at the UN gener...

Culture

2 w. ago Trump is no 'strongman' when it comes to Russia or Israel. If other democracies don’t step up, anarchy awaits | Simon Tisdall

Putin and Netanyahu are creating chaos in the vacuum left by a weak US president. But there are still ways to foil themIt is too easy to blame Donald Trump for everything that goes wrong in the world. The ability of any US president to fundamentally change or control the behaviour of other major powers is frequently overestimated. Yet by posing as a sort of uncrowned global monarch and grand arbiter of war and peace, Trump perpetuates fantasies of US hegemony, omnipotence and divine right. Intoxicated by such ego-inflating delusions, he pledged before taking office to swiftly end the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. Perhaps, in his vanity and hubris, he truly believed he could.Eight months on, the exact opposite is happening. Both crises are expanding and escalating. The bubble has burst, his bluff has been called, the emperor has no clothes – and there is no denying that Trump, by alternately appeasing, excusing and encouraging the two foremost villains of these twin tragedies, is great...

Politics

3 w. ago Britain's asylum capital warns it faces a migrant 'disaster': Glasgow's SNP leader fears city will be unable to cope with surge of homeless refugees amid Labour's hotel crackdown

The leader of Glasgow council has warned of 'disastrous' consequences if thousands of refugees head to Scotland when Labour kicks them out of migrant hotels in England.

Events

3 w. ago Japan PM Shigeru Ishiba to resign amid fallout from disastrous elections

Public broadcaster says prime minister has made decision to avoid divide within his Liberal Democratic partyJapan’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, is to resign less than a year after taking office, throwing the country’s politics into turmoil and setting in motion a potentially messy contest to replace him as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP).The softly spoken centrist has presided over two disastrous elections since being elected to lead the LDP last autumn. In October, the party and its junior coalition partner Komeito lost their majority in the lower house and met the same fate in upper house elections this July. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago One by one, leaders learn that grovelling to Trump leads to disaster. When will it dawn on Starmer? | Simon Tisdall

As the US president’s state visit looms, he’s leaving a trail of broken promises across the globe. Britain can’t afford to look like a lackey stateSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and moreSucking up to Donald Trump never works for long. Narendra Modi is the latest world leader to learn this lesson the hard way. Wooing his “true friend” in the White House, India’s authoritarian prime minister thought he’d conquered Trump’s inconstant heart. The two men hit peak pals in 2019, holding hands at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Texas. But it’s all gone pear-shaped thanks to Trump’s tariffs and dalliance with Pakistan. Like a jilted lover on the rebound, Modi shamelessly threw himself at Vladimir Putin in China last week. Don and Narendra! It’s over! Although, to be honest, it always felt a little shallow.Other suitors for Trump’s slippery hand have suffered similar heartbr...

Politics